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Minimal pair
Minimal pairs are pairs of words which differ in only one phonological element. English contains many minimal pairs, and well-known examples are the words ship and sheep and tree and three. Likewise, many students find it hard to come to terms with the fact that most verbs in English change tense using only one tiny little sound and they often need ongoing practice in pronouncing such differences. Not all minimal pairs are difficult to set apart. For example bat and boot, swim and swam, rose and doze, bush and book. This article is concerned with difficult minimal pairs. According to Wikipedia,Wikipedia, minimal pair author Gillian Brown has criticized this approach as being artificial and lacking in relevance to language learners' needs.Cited in Wikipedia: G. Brown (1990), Listening to Spoken English. pp. 144–146. Differences in consonants These can be grouped together by initial sound or final sound: Initial sound choose - Jews; choose - shoes; chop - shop; cheese - she's; day - they; sink - zinc; think - sink; three - tree; Final sound Two similar consonants: badge - batch; life - live (adj.); sin - sing; some/sum - sun/son; watch - wash; One extra sound at the end: bill - build; chain - change; fine - find; hell - help; sell - self; star - start; The following are especially common: */d/ vs /t/: grade - great; hard – heart; made - mate; played - plate; raid - rate; ride – right/write; said - set; side/sighed - sight/site; stayed - state; thread - threat; tide/tied - tight; weighed - weight; white - wide; *'/z/' vs /s/: eyes - ice; lose - loose; phase - face; plays - place; prize - price; raise/rays - race; rise - rice; Sound in the middle of the word alive - arrive; decree - degree; money - mummy; precedent - president; simple - symbol Differences in vowels *Monosyllables: ** /æ/ vs /ʌ/: back - buck; ban- bun; bat - but; cat - cut; lack - luck; mad - mud; pack - puck; stack - stuck; staff - stuff; swam - swum; ran - run; tan - ton; ** /ɪ/ vs /iː/: bit - beat/beet; chip - cheap; dip - deep; fill - feel; filled - field; hid - heed; hit - heat; live (vb.) – leave; ship - sheep; sit - seat; still - steal/steel; will - wheel; ** /aɪ/ vs /eɪ/: height - hate; light - late; plight - plate; ride - raid; right/write - rate; white - wait/weight; wide - wade; ** various: great - greet; line - loin; nose - noise; soup - soap; state - estate; walk - work; *Polysyllables: apologies - apologise; batter - butter; bottle - battle; Differences in word stress *re'cord' (vb) – re'cord (n); wee'kend – wea'kened; be'low - 'bel'low; "Nasty neighbors"/commonly confused words As well as the minimal pairs mentioned above, there are several words which, while not strictly minimal pairs, are sufficiently similar to each other so as to cause problems for many students. Examples such as foot /fʊt/ - food /fuːd/ can be hard to distinguish as they not only have similar - but to the native ear, different - vowels, but also similar consonants, thereby making them doubly treacherous. Other nasty neighbors are minimal pairs, but contrary to reason, the different letter is not the one that changes in sound. *loose /luːs/ - lose /luːz/ *prophecy /ˈprɒfəsɪ/ - prophesy /ˈprɒfəsaɪ/ *woman /wʊmən/ - women /wɪmən/ These examples vary one letter and two sounds. See Not quite minimal pairs. *breath /br θ/ - breathe /briːð/ *desert /ˈd zərt/ - dessert /dɪˈzɜːrt/ (note that the verb desert is also pronounced /dɪˈzɜːrt/) References See also *Digraph *Homophone *International Phonetic Alphabet *Pronunciation and decoding exercises: /s/ vs /z/ *Word stress External links *Some minimal pairs with pronunciation category:pronunciation Category:Vocabulary